The Hollow Queen (11 page)

To let her fellow fire demons out of the Vault of the Underworld, where they had been trapped since the Before-Time.

In spite of many carefully planned escape attempts, there had only been two ways discovered of opening the Vault over the course of history. The first happened by accident, when a star known as the Sleeping Child fell from the heavens into the depths of the sea and shattered the Vault, itself made, like the titan's body, of Living Stone. When that had occurred in the First Age of history, a number of F'dor, Hrarfa among them, had been ejected or been able to escape, while the rest remained trapped when the Vault was resealed.

The second way of opening the Vault had been discovered later in history. A race of beings known as Children of the Earth, entities that were magically conjured by dragons seeking to extend their progeny by sacrificing some of their life force, or soul, and housing it in a body also formed of Living Stone, like the statue that had eventually become the titan.

Unlike the primitive statue, however, Earthchildren were living beings, though most of them had passed from the world in long-ago ages. They had souls, and features, and even earthen bones and internal organs. One of those bones, the rib, was the perfect size and shape to serve as a key of Living Stone.

A key that would open the Vault of the Underworld.

And, as luck would have it, the one last known living Child of Earth was here, on the Middle Continent.

Deep within the Firbolg mountains.

And Hrarfa, like the rest of her race, knew it.

The F'dor had been biding their time for ages, waiting to find such an opportunity. Hrarfa herself had passed from host to host, searching for a chance to take the rib from the Earthchild's body.

But the challenges and barriers to finding that child and doing so had been mammoth.

Now, however, that two distinct beings, each with a similar goal, resided in a titanic body of Living Stone, the challenges had been minimized.

Perhaps, even, eliminated.

*   *   *

As the caravan set out for the Bolglands, Hrarfa sought her living partner in the darkness of the earthen body.

Are you angry with me for leaving him, Faron?

At first, and for the longest time, there was nothing but silence.

Finally an answer, sensed, unspoken.

No
.

Hrarfa was relieved.
Good,
she whispered.
He was unworthy of us
.
Wasting our time
.

For a long while there was silence. Then, at last, a thought conveyed in the darkness of their stone residence.

I want it to be over. I want to be with my father again.

I know,
Hrarfa thought soothingly, desperately hoping to impart comfort to the childlike entity she shared the statue with.
I know, Faron. Do not despair.

We are on our way now.

Silence answered her.

 

13

SOUTHWESTERN BORDER OF ROLAND AND SORBOLD

Yabrith raised his eyes to the sun.

The morning was late in coming, it seemed to him, heavy clouds hanging low enough in the sky to delay any real light. Dranth would return from his morning scouting soon, he knew, and was no doubt appreciating the shade.

The sweet richness of spring in the Middle Continent was fading into summer's dry heat as they approached the southern ring of the Teeth. Yabrith was secretly pleased; moisture in the air, wet grass, and color were foreign notions to him, and while the desert clime of Sorbold was much sandier and drier than the cold clay of Yarim he was used to, he was more comfortable approaching it. But that was the only reason he was more comfortable.

He had not been with Dranth when the guild scion had secured the order to enter the Bolglands and capture the Child of Time, as well as the information of how to do so. Dranth had returned to the guildhall in what, for the acerbic master assassin, could rightly have been deemed a good mood, something Yabrith did not recall seeing in the several decades of acquaintance he had shared with the man. Dranth had been so excited, so certain about their mission and the intelligence he had received, that Yabrith had been almost sad not to have qualified for the unit assigned to carry out the mission.

Now, of course, he was secretly relieved to have been overlooked. But at the time, when Dranth had summoned the top echelon of assassins to select the participants, and had included him in the meeting only so that he would know his stewardship of the guild and hall were required, it had stung. He had always known that Dranth did not consider him a true assassin, but more on the order of Paddy the barkeep, Janil the weaponsmaker, and Leopold the poisoner, all critical to their operation but never actually a part of it.

Having been made in his youth, with the stabbing out of the eyes of one of Yarim's town guards in a back alley while he slept off his drink, Yabrith had always thought he was at least considered an assassin, if a non-practitioner. He had taken part in mass stabbings and ritual torture that led to killings whenever the opportunity presented itself, just to subtly remind his mates in the guild that he was one of them. He had even been chosen by Dranth to accompany him to Golgarn, another mission undertaken for the new emperor of Sorbold, to meet with the Spider's Clutch, that seaside kingdom's guild, to undertake the setup that had frightened Beliac, Golgarn's king, into handing over every warship Talquist requested without resistance. At the time, Yabrith had taken the assignment as a sign of Dranth's faith in him, a show of respect.

But now it was clear that he was really only being tolerated, appreciated for his administration skills, an emasculating feeling if ever there was one. It called his very brotherhood into question.

Knowing that Trentius, Sandon, and Dhremane did not even see death coming in the Bolglands was easing the injury a bit, however.

Beside him the dust in the air shifted, a subtle way that Dranth had for letting him know he was back. No one who was unfamiliar with the ways of the guild scion would even have noticed. The thought raised Yabrith's fallen spirits a bit.

“Done movin' yer bowels?” he asked politely.

Dranth said nothing, but took up the pouch he had left behind in his scouting and affixed it to his waist.

“We're only one day out of the steppes,” he said, his voice grainier than the sandy wind. “Two more to the official entrance road. It's heavily guarded, and while I utilized it when I came for the emperor's second Weighing and coronation, I suspect I would be welcomed less hospitably now. So we will take the back way and get there in three.”

Yabrith nodded and took up his own provisions.

“No time like the present,” he said pleasantly.

Dranth stopped in his tracks and stared at him. “I was just thinking that same adage,” he said suspiciously. “What is the likelihood of that?”

Yabrith shrugged. “Don' know,” he said. “But if we don' heed it, we will be arriving in four, and that's a far less lucky number 'n three, as far as I'm concerned. Let's be off.”

They blended into the shadows cast by the finally rising sun and were gone.

TYRIAN FOREST EDGE, NEAR THE BORDER OF JAKAR, SORBOLD

The end of his hidden passage on the way to Sorbold was about to come to an end, Achmed knew.

And, when it ended, he expected it would end in a goodbye, said to someone from whom he hated to part almost as much as he hated to meet up with her.

At least now that her husband was out in the ocean somewhere, attempting to rally support from the Cymrians who lived across the Wide Central Sea, the reason for his dislike of meeting up with her had been eliminated.

And so the meeting of the two old friends in secret in the forest of Tyrian had been the only pleasant thing either of them had experienced in recent memory. Rhapsody had been for some time in the Lirin wood where she reigned as their titular queen, making preparations for its defense and coping with the loss of Port Tallono, the Lirin harbor; Achmed had managed to get word to her through the first of the Lirin stables where he boarded a horse upon arriving in Tyrian at the northeastern fringe of the forest, just south of Navarne.

The roan that he had quartered in the private livery there was nervous upon seeing him at first: a strange thing, given that he had trained it personally, but after an hour or so in the forest, he came to understand that its discomfort had not been with him, but with being taken out of the thinner forestlands for the deeply forested greenwood. Roans were forest horses; once they had traveled for a short time in the uninhabited woods, no other people in sight, the animal had settled down and had virtually flown over the untrimmed ground.

Outside of Tyrian City in the central part of the mighty forest, he traded the roan for a Mondrian, a horse of the same bloodline as that of the late Llauron the Invoker, Ashe's father, who had been knowledgeable about and fond of the breed. He had been pleased enough with the animal to get over his initial distaste for agreeing on something with Llauron; it was one of the nimblest mounts in his network.

Rhapsody had met him a few hours outside the stable. Her own responsibilities only allowed her the span of three days to travel with him before she needed to return to the front in Roland, but they had met up without incident and traveled speedily and silently together, covering ground that should have taken twice as long in Tyrian, arriving at last in a thick glen near the southeastern forest edge, through which the towers of the bloodsport complex of Nikkid'sar in Sorbold could be seen in the far distance.

It was a place of bad memories for the Lady Cymrian; she had followed some foolish advice from Llauron long ago and made her way in, without reinforcements, to that complex to capture and steal a gladiator who turned out later in life to the be the Patriarch, now in exile.

The memories must still be fresh, he knew, judging by Rhapsody's eyes, which glittered more noticeably the closer they came to the end of the route.

She said nothing, however.

As they came to the terminus at last, Achmed dismounted and, waiting until Rhapsody's mount had come to a halt, took the bridle in hand while she did so as well.

“You're moving better,” he observed as she came off the horse one-handed, avoiding the arm that had been bound to her chest in a cloth sling. “How's the wound?”

“Almost healed, but Ylsa has been after me to allow it as much of what she calls ‘gentle time' as it can have; the muscle mends less rapidly in that area of the body than others, so improvement can be deceptive as to how much strength is really there.” The Lady Cymrian turned her head and whistled a quiet trill, then glanced about the forest and turned back to him. “It's so strange to be here on horseback.”

“Why?”

She smiled slightly. “I've been here many times since, usually on foot and in the open, but the first time I ever came through here I was escorted by Oelendra and a few of her most trusted scouts, in secret and mounted, just before I made my way clandestinely into Sorbold, as you are about to attempt.”

The Bolg king's sharp gaze flickered for an instant in surprise.

“Attempt? You doubt my ability to make my way clandestinely into
Sorbold?
What have I ever done to you to merit such a vicious insult?”

“It's not meant as an insult or a lack of confidence. I am not worried about you getting in at all. I just hope you can get out again. And I am also just trying to keep as much clarity of speech as I can these days. Without possession of my true name, my entire identity is contained in ‘Rhapsody,' which is the Namer part of me, the one sworn to truth in speech. So while I believe you will make it to Sorbold, just as I believe it will be a fine day, I can't be sure, and so I say ‘attempt.' I know, however, that in spite of evidence to the contrary this morning, the sun will eventually rise, and your passage will be riskier, so if you want me to return your mount to the way station for you, I will be happy to do so. I know you like to check on each of your Wings personally after riding them, but I suspect you know that the border guards who tend to that livery have it well in hand.”